1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an information recording and/or reproducing apparatus adapted for recording or reproducing voices and images on a strip-like recording medium by pulling it out of a cassette which contains the recording medium and more particularly to a cassette adapter which is suited for the apparatus to permit both small and large cassettes to be usable on the apparatus.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Taking cassette type video tape recorders (hereinafter will be called VTRs for short) as an example of the apparatus to which the present invention is applicable, conventional home VTRs can be divided into non-portable and portable types. Generally, the non-portable type home VTR has a tuner and an AC power source and is arranged to mainly record programs broadcast from television broadcasting stations. Meanwhile, the purpose of the portable type home VTR is to take pictures. However, the portable VTR is using the same kind of cassettes as those used for the non-portable VTR. As a result of this, the portability of the conventional VTR is still insufficient.
In view of this, there have been proposed various portable VTR systems which are arranged to use small cassettes containing tapes of small capacity at the sacrifice of the length of recordable time.
This arrangement, however, presents a problem which lies in that it necessitates use of the portable VTR system solely for the purpose of taking pictures in addition to a non-portable type VTR adapted mainly for recording broadcast programs which requires a long time recording function.
Further, if the recording tape of the small cassette to be used for the small-cassette using portable VTR is in a format not interchangeable with that of the large-cassette using non-portable VTR, the tape recorded by the portable VTR cannot be used on the non-portable VTR and necessitates a process of converting to an electrical signal as known by the name of "dubbing". However, a dubbing process is not desirable because it degrades the S/N ratio of records.